Last week, bids closed for an 83% stake in Fonterra's biggest supplier, Dairy Holdings, which oversees 72 South Island farms. Bidders reportedly include Chinese dairy giant Bright Dairy, a pastoral fund owned by Australian investment bank Macquarie Group, British private equity firm Terra Firma. US private equity firm Carlyle Group and the Harvard Endowment Fund.
China's enormous sovereign wealth fund, the China Investment Corporation, may have set aside up to 1.5% or about $6 billion of its massive foreign exchange reserves to invest in New Zealand assets, including potentially dairy farms.
More Southland land has been sold to overseas investors in the past year than at any other time during the past six years.
Dairy exporter Fonterra is expanding in South America with plans for a pilot dairy farm in Brazil.
The New Zealand dairy giant has signed a deal to buy an 850 hectare farm in the Brazilian state of Goias.
Agricultural land is once again attracting global investors but the sector is far from risk free.
- Knight Frank
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27 April 2011
With commodity prices at record highs, New Zealand must protect its global advantage by keeping New Zealand land for New Zealand citizens, permanent residents and companies, Green Party Co-leader Dr Russel Norman said today.
La compañía de inversiones de China, Shanghai Pengxin Group, tiene pensado invertir US$ 158 millones en la compra de establecimientos lecheros en Nueva Zelanda (las estancias de Crafar).
Selling the Crafar farms to an overseas consortium cannot possibly be in New Zealand’s economic interests, says Green Party Co-leader.
- Green Party
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15 April 2011
Agria has lifted its stake in PGG Wrightson to 50.5%, putting control of New Zealand's biggest rural services company in Chinese hands.
Pengxin International of Shanghai, which already has farmland holdings in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Cambodia, has offered to buy the 16 North Island Crafar farm properties in New Zealand
- Radio New Zealand
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12 April 2011
China's Little Sheep Group says it plans to build a sheep farm in New Zealand in order to increase the supply of lamb for its hot pot restaurant chain business.
